Thursday legends

41

'What's the number?' Dan Pringle asked, gazing along Coltbridge Terrace.

'It doesn't have one, sir,' Detective Sergeant Jack McGurk replied as they walked along, between linked bungalows on one side of the road and a small tenement on the other. 'Only a name; River Cottage. I think it might be along there, on the right. I can see a couple of houses on their own.'

They strode on, their car parked at the entrance to the narrow cul-de-sac, past a modern building on their right to the first of the detached dwellings. McGurk read the name-plate. 'No, that's not it.' They moved on to the next. 'Not that either.'

And then, a slight curve in the road, and a single-storey house which until then had not been in their line of vision; it was set back from the street, unlike the others, and had a small rose garden, with a path leading to the front door. It seemed to stand out into the flowing water behind, and as they approached they could see the structure below, built into the river bank.

McGurk's keen eyes read the name-plate from yards away. 'This is it,' he announced. 'River Cottage.'

'Aye,' said Pringle. 'Like Shearer's secretary said, it backs right on to the water. Come on then.' He led the way up the path.

The house looked, even felt, deserted. There were drawn blinds on the two front windows; the frosted glass panels set into the green-painted front door gave no hint of light or life inside. There was no bell, only a big, black knocker. McGurk grabbed it and rapped it hard; once, twice, a third time.

They waited for no more than thirty seconds, before Pringle said, 'Right that's enough. Let's get in there. Let's see what the back's like.' He disappeared round the side of the house, the big Sergeant on his heels, but saw at once that there was no back door. The building stood, quite literally, at the water's edge.

They returned to the front door; it appeared to be secured only by a cylinder lock. McGurk glanced around until he saw a brick in a corner of the garden. He picked it up and, with a single quick blow, smashed a hole in one of the glass panels, reached in and opened it with a single twist.

'Smells in here, sir,' he said, as he stepped into the house. They stood in a dusty hallway, not large, but wide enough to allow a narrow stairway, on the right, to run up into the attic.

Pringle opened a door at the foot of the steps. 'Kitchen.' McGurk opened the door opposite. 'Living room. Looks tidy and undisturbed.' They moved through the hall and past the stairway to the back of the house, where they found a small neat bedroom, and a bathroom.

'Look at this,' the Sergeant called out as he looked inside. 'There are towels lying all over the floor.' He stepped across to the bath; a shower curtain on a rail, hanging inside the tub had been pulled most of the way across. He yanked it back, and took a quick look around.

A pink face-cloth had been thrown over the shower's mixer tap; the sergeant picked it up and saw quickly that it had not always been that colour. He handed it to Pringle. 'No prizes for guessing what that is.' He leaned over and picked up a cake of Dove cream soap; it bore faint red streaks.

'Someone's been cleaning up in here,' he muttered, 'in a hurry, from the way those towels were chucked about.'

'Upstairs,' Pringle barked. He led the way back to the hall, and up the narrow stairs to the attic, to a small landing from which three doors opened. He made for the nearest, the one in the middle: a cupboard. 'Bugger.'

McGurk threw open the door to the left: and recoiled as the sudden stink wafted out. 'Jeez.' He switched on the light, and looked at a slaughterhouse.

There was a bed; a big metal-framed bed, against the far wall. A duvet lay in a corner of the wide spacious room, made larger by the curtained dormer window which the detectives knew must overlook the river. A white sheet and pillows in the far corner. In another, a man's jacket, underpants and trousers, over a chair, socks and shoes on the floor.

But the bed itself… The remaining sheet told a horror story; it was soaked with blood, apart from a patch in the middle, which corresponded roughly to the shape of a man's body, and was stained a different, yellowish colour. Four lengths of white rope, blood-streaked again, were secured to the four corner posts of the frame; at some point the man they had restrained had been cut loose. A number of small objects lay near each of the strands; McGurk bent over them, peering. 'Don't touch,' Pringle whispered, unnecessarily. Severed thumb, severed little fingers at the far end, severed big toe, severed little toe at each of the nearer corners; discoloured but not yet black. Discarded, between where the feet had been secured, lay a heavy pair of garden secateurs.

And laid against the frame, caked with thick, dark, dried blood, a full-sized, metal baseball bat. 'The murder weapon, d'you think?' asked Pringle heavily.

He looked around the room, feeling queasy and regretting his last four whiskies of the evening before. There were blood spatters on the walls around the bed, on the curtains and even on the ceiling. A red trail led across the carpet from the frame to the door.

'I noticed two bolts in the hallway floor,' said McGurk. 'I bet they're for securing a trap door, covering steps down to a boat-landing on the river. There's no rug in the hall, but I'll bet that there used to be, until it was used as this guy's shroud, before he was rolled down those steps and dumped in the river.'

'I'm not taking either of those bets,' said Pringle. He stepped carefully across to a dressing table, in the window space. A black leather wallet lay on it. He picked it up, by a corner and held it up. It held no money, but there were six plastic cards in slots. He slid one out with a finger until he could read the holder's name; 'H. Shearer.'

He set it back down on the dressing table, took out his mobile and dialled Skinner's number. Mcllhenney answered. 'The Boss there, Neil?'

'No. He's had to go out.'

'You got an ID on your pal from that blood yet?'

'No, not yet.'

'We have, at his son's cottage. Sorry, lad, but he was here all right. Some of him still is, in fact; all over the fucking place.

'You'd better tell the Boss when he comes in that it's all right for him to call Mrs Shearer now'